


Stay

by Juul



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Grimmauld Place, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Separation Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 23:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7011991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juul/pseuds/Juul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whenever Remus goes out on missions for the Order, Sirius gets really scared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's notes:** written for HP mental health fest 2016. My thanks go out to the mods, and I want to emphasize how amazing I find it that Fandom is raising awareness and understanding for such a wide range of mental health issues. I have limited personal experience with the kind of anxiety described in this story. I have researched and done my best to do the experience justice as a writer, but I do apologize in advance for anyone who feels their struggles are misinterpreted or misrepresented in this story. I meant no harm. 
> 
> I took the title of this story from the David Bowie song _Stay_
> 
> **Beta:** blue_eyed_1987 on LJ

Someone had bewitched the walls. It was the only explanation. If Sirius knew his mother, it had been her. She had foreseen what would happen to him, what would become of him, and in order to increase his torment she’d hexed the walls. The moldy, grimy walls of Grimmauld Place, the tapestries and paintings and wallpapers and curtains that he had so despised since childhood, had turned on him.

Most of the time, and Sirius counted himself lucky that it was, indeed, most of the time, the walls seemed to be crowding him in. Their plaster and wood and peeling paint were slowly but steadily moving towards him, squeezing the oxygen out of the air and suffocating him. Yes, most days, Sirius was plagued by an unending desire to _get out_. 

He wanted to go grocery shopping with Remus, to bicker over the kind of biscuits they’d get. He wanted to be taken on an old-fashioned walk with a tennis ball clasped in his jaw, and roll around in the wet grass while Remus made him fetch it and begged him to stay out of the pond. He wanted to feel the fresh air on his face and Remus’ hand in his own as they walked together, lazily enjoying the sun.

Not right now, though. Right now he wanted to die.

Because this wasn’t one of those times, one of the horrible yet familiar moments in which Sirius felt trapped inside a nightmare. This was way worse, because this was a nightmare. Remus was not here. 

The walls, the room, the house, the furniture, everything tethering Sirius to earth had disappeared. He was overcome by the vastness of the space around him, the all-encompassing ice-cold emptiness, so horribly familiar. He was sitting in a dark corner of the living room, curled up into a ball and wrapped in a blanket, and the empty room echoed around him like an Azkaban dungeon.

One, two three. In through the nose. One, two, three, hold. One, two, three, out through the mouth.

Except his legs were shaking and his teeth were chattering and his stomach was churning and _Remus wasn’t here._

They had gone over it and over it and over it in an endless string of conversations. The anxiety had started almost immediately after Azkaban. Sirius had been completely unhinged when he escaped, but the moment he laid eyes on Moony again in the Shrieking Shack, it was impossible to be away from him. They had coped with it. The first night, Remus had relaxed and allowed Sirius to hold him and listen to the steady beat of his heart, murmuring over and over again: “I’m here, I’m with you, I’m okay, you’re not alone.” For the first time in ages Sirius had been able to sleep.

But it didn’t end there. Sirius felt an inexplainable pull to Remus, almost like a gravitational force, urging him to always stay close. He followed Remus into the kitchen of his dingy apartment, into the shower, out to the shops disguised as a dog. It was all he could do to remain still when Remus had to use the bathroom. A week went by, two weeks, three. The hot flaring ball of anxiety in Sirius’ stomach did not ease up for even a second. In fact, his desire to be near Remus seemed to only grow stronger over time. In spite of Remus’ protests, they spent the full moon together, hiding out in the bedroom as two overgrown dogs. 

Then Dumbledore’s message had come. It took them by surprise over porridge and tea one morning, the large silvery Patronus that said, in Dumbledore’s calm voice: “It is starting. Come to Grimmauld Place.”

They’d left with almost no time to think it over and absolutely no conception of what it meant. That was two months ago. Two months since Sirius had been reunited with his childhood home, two months of house arrest and Remus going on an endless streak of dangerous missions. Two months of sitting in the corner hiding under a blanket.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Remus. On the contrary, he trusted Remus with everything he had and everything he was. That was the problem. It was as though a part of Sirius was missing when Remus wasn’t there, like he could never truly be himself when he was alone anymore. Alone just meant without Remus these days; all other people were unimportant.

While he trusted Remus, he had trouble trusting anyone else. Certainly not the loud, dangerous world that was out there, that had hurt them so much and was probably plotting to hurt them some more. That Remus should be there, exposed to Muggles and Wizards alike and loathed by most of them for the silliest of reasons, was almost too much to bear. That Sirius should be _here_ without him, in this particular dreadful place, that was just the cherry on the cake.

After a month they had talked to Dumbledore about it. Or rather, Remus had talked to Dumbledore about it. Sirius had stared blankly at the kitchen floor and tried not to cry. He was Sirius Black, defender of the innocent and doer of good and justice. Except now, he also appeared to be a clingy toddler.

Dumbledore had nodded solemnly, tried and failed to look Sirius in the eye, and recommended a number of anti-anxiety enchantments for Sirius to try. They helped, to a certain extent. The enchantments were like soft bubbles of numbness that took away the rough edges of his fear. There were no more thoughts of car accidents or dark wizards or werewolf haters in the street. Instead, there was an unfocussed sense of dread, the way one might feel after learning it could start raining any minute now.

Not today, though. Today, everything felt hellish and his body was on fire with nervous tension and he’d already spit up his breakfast but he was pretty sure there was another vomiting incident in the near future. Remus had been gone for three days, already. That was at least one day more than Sirius had mentally prepared himself for. Something had gone _wrong._ Something had gone really wrong this time, he just knew it.

He had been sitting on the cold wooden floor for so long that his whole body was sore from discomfort and tension. There was a sound in the distance, the heavy thunk of the door opening and light footsteps in the hall. Sirius tried to pull out of the all-encompassing haze of his anxiety, thought vaguely of who it could be. Would Dumbledore come and tell him personally if something had happened to Remus, or would he send someone? Molly, perhaps. Not Snape. Please let it not be Snape that had just come in, Snape couldn’t see him like this… He kept his eyes tightly closed and tried to regulate his breathing. It wasn’t working. There was no air in the room. The blanket was too tight around him, and his vision was dancing with spots of light and dark. He lost consciousness.

********************************************************************************************

 

“Sirius? Sirius, love?”

The floor wasn’t as hard and ungiving below him as it had been before. The air was fresher now, less stifled, and there was a gentle hand on his shoulder, callused fingertips tracing patterns on the skin. _Callused fingertips._ With a jolt, Sirius sat upright. It had been too sudden a move, the room started spinning around him again, but he was looking straight into Remus’ golden brown eyes and who gave a fuck about the room, who gave a fuck about anything in the world, as long as Remus was right there with him. As long as Remus was safe.

He had started to cry. It seemed like he was always crying these days. Crying when Remus was with him, crying when he wasn’t. Crying about the times they hadn’t been and wouldn’t be together. It felt like a brief respite, like a moment of calm before the storm, to have Remus so close to him again. Dignity disappeared when Moony appeared, so Sirius allowed sobs to wreck his body, pulling Remus in close, wiping his tears on his tattered overcoat and breathing in his familiar smell.

Remus knew what to do. They had sat in this exact spot, in this exact situation, more times than either of them cared to remember. So Remus gently rocked him backwards and forwards and whispered: “Shh. Shh, it’s okay sweetheart. I’m here now. I’m right here with you. I love you. Everything is okay” 

Relief only compelled Sirius to cry more, to cling to Remus more desperately, and they sat like that for at least half an hour before the sobs died down. Even then, Remus didn’t put any distance between them. He sat, rocking gently, the picture of patience, until Sirius pulled away of his own accord. Then, he made sure to look him straight in the eye when he said: “I’m not doing it anymore.”

Sirius didn’t understand. His head was fuzzy with recent panic and even more recent sadness and relief, and somehow Remus’ words didn’t add up.

“Doing what?” he managed.

“I’m not going on any more undercover missions. I sent a Patronus to Dumbledore last week, that this was going to be my last attempt.”

Sirius looked at him disbelievingly. “You’re not…leaving?” It was too good to be true. It was so good it couldn’t be happening. Not to him. He didn’t deserve this.

“Never again,” Remus said solemnly.

Sirius was already smiling a little. Remus pulled him back against his shoulder and whispered: “You know what the best part is?” 

Sirius nodded. The best part was that Moony had come back to him, and was here to stay. But Remus misinterpreted his silence and said: “Greyback’s agreed to meet with Dumbledore.”

It registered vaguely that that was good news, that not all of his suffering had been for nothing. But then Remus was pulling him closer still, carefully kissing up his neck and the line of his jaw towards his mouth and it was so much easier, so much more comfortable, not to think at all.

Remus tasted like sweet tea, the way he always did, and the kiss, which had started out slow and reassuring, now became interlaced with desire. Sirius was amazed to find that a feeling that had nothing to do with fear was taking a hold of him now, that his body was still capable of feeling _good._ Just when his busy brain was starting to slow down, Remus pulled away.

“Sirius?” His eyes were serious but also gentle.

“Yeah?” His voice still rough from crying, Sirius thought he would do anything, absolutely anything that Moony would ask.

“We’re going to work on this, alright?” When Sirius’ eyes turned big as saucers he added: “Baby steps, sweetheart, baby steps.”

“Okay,” Sirius nodded. “I guess that’d be okay.”

And with Remus by his side, he felt that it really might be.


End file.
